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Please see the January 27, 2001 entry in Flat Teddy's Journal.

Flat Teddy should have been here for the movie I saw on this television! He would have loved sitting on a saddle to watch it, but he was out in the camper having a nap while I toured the Museum of Science and History in Corpus Christi, Texas . In each section of this museum there is an introductory video to watch before viewing the various exhibits. The room you're seeing here is the place to watch the video about cattle ranching, and visitors could choose to sit on a saddle or on a bench seat to watch the video. Many of the large cattle drives of the 1800s began down in the south of Texas, including the area around Corpus Christi, and the cattle were then driven hundreds and hundreds of miles north to railroads where they could be loaded on cattle cars and shipped to Eastern U.S. markets. Items in this room include many of the things cowboys and vaqueros used to round up the cattle and to keep them in a herd on their long cattle drives up north through Texas and Oklahoma Territory to Kansas. The life of the cowboys and vaqueros is changing in these modern times, and they appear to be a vanishing breed. As one example of the changes brought on by modern inventions, nowadays cattle can be found out on the range and herded to the ranch much more efficiently and cheaply with a helicopter. In a few hours a helicopter can do what it would take the cowboys and vaqueros many days to do on horseback.

The Alamo was built in 1718 by the Spanish when they controlled Mexico, the borders of which extended far north into the present states of Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. At that time, in the early 1700s, Texas was spelled Tejas, and the people who lived in that region of Mexico were called Texians. The building you see in the picture was a chapel, which was part of the mission San Antonio de Valero, situated near the banks of the San Antonio River. The chapel was never completed and never had a roof on it. The mission had several outbuildings and a large open central area, all enclosed in thick walls. There were several gates into the mission compound. In 1803 the mission was taken over by Spanish cavalry and called Pueblo del Alamo. (Alamo means cottonwood in Spanish.)

The dictator general of Mexico, Santa Anna, and his government had enacted increasingly worse laws to control Texas, and the Texians began to revolt. In 1835 Mexican general Martin Perfecto de Cos fortified the Alamo but was defeated by the Texians, who took over the whole fortress, including this unfinished chapel with no roof. General Santa Anna was enraged at this defeat and marched with an army of 4,000 on San Antonio. He began his attack on the Alamo on February 23, 1835, and kept up the siege for thirteen days, losing hundreds of his troops as the Texians fought back. In command of the Texas troops was Colonel William Travis and Colonel James Bowie. David "Davy" Crockett was also there with some volunteer troops who had come from Tennessee. Bowie fell gravely ill with pneumonia, and at that point Travis took over total command. Travis twice sent for help from other Texas troops in the area but was unable to get any to come to his aid. He and the men in the Alamo discussed their options but all agreed they'd rather die defending Texas' freedom than surrender. Early in the morning of March 6 Santa Anna's troops stormed the north wall and invaded the inner courtyard. The Texians fought bravely but gradually pulled their cannons back to the far corner, where this uncompleted mission stood. The last of them to die were in this chapel, defending Texas' right to freedom with their last breath.

The thirteen days that they engaged Santa Anna's troops gave Texas general Sam Houston time to organize other Texas troops, and a few weeks later he decisively defeated the Mexican troops at San Jacinto (near present-day Houston), taking Santa Anna captive. The battle cry that Houston's troops rallied to was, "Remember the Alamo!"

Texas was no longer part of Mexico and at that time became an independent republic. It was some years later that it became a part of the United States. This chapel was completed in recent times and serves today as a shrine of Texas pride and independence. As I walked around inside it and through the surrounding outbuildings, museums, and courtyards with many other visitors, I never heard anyone speak louder than a whisper. Texans (and many other people from around the world) revere this spot where brave men took their final stand in defense of their freedom.

Here we are at Big Bend National Park in west Texas. Its southern boundary is the Rio Grande, and across that river is Mexico. The park encompasses desert and mountain habitats, both. The low-lying land in the park is part of the Chihuahuan desert, which extends far south into Mexico. Big Bend lies in the northern third of the Chihuahuan desert. [There are three other deserts in the United States: Sonoran, Mojave, and Great Basin.] The Chisos Mountains in the center of Big Bend National Park are an island of green, their upper slopes covered in pine, fir, and aspen trees. Some of these trees are growing at the extreme southern limit of their U.S. ranges.

Ancient cultures made their homes along the river, and the first picture shows evidence of one of those groups of people. The holes carved in the limestone near the Rio Grande were used for grinding corn and other grains.

The second picture shows the mouth of one of the canyons that the river cuts through on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. This beautiful canyon is named Santa Elena. That little speck you see in the river on the left side of the picture is a woman in a canoe. She had floated down from a boat landing further upriver, and at this point she would have passed the most treacherous part of the river, named Rock Slide. Early European explorers were tempted to take a boat down the river to explore its course, but they weren't sure what they'd find. They were afraid they'd get stuck in the canyon with no way to portage around a difficult spot. They sent an unmanned wooden boat down the river, probably from the place where this woman put in, and the boat arrived here at the mouth of Santa Elena canyon in small, jagged, wooden pieces!

My memory of these two sites is of the sounds I was hearing as I took the photographs. Across the river from me when I took the picture of the grinding holes I could hear a child singing. I watched for a long time and then saw a horse carrying two children appear on a trail that went along the other side of the river. The little girl was singing a song (in Spanish, of course) at the top of her high, sweet voice. It was an enchanting sound in the coolness of the morning! As I was taking the second picture I was listening to the beautiful song of the canyon wren trilling its notes down a scale all its own. It sang its scale over and over for me, as if it knew I wouldn't hear that sound again for a very long time. At that point, the other few hikers on the trail had gone on ahead, and the bird sang its recital for an audience of one very appreciative listener.

This frontier military post was built in the Davis Mountains of West Texas in 1854 and named after then Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis. The first buildings were primitive wood structures, which collapsed during a five-year period during and after the Civil War when the fort was not occupied by either Northern or Southern troops. The Ninth U.S. Cavalry reoccupied the fort in June of 1867, two years after the end of the Civil War, and began putting up the stone buildings you see in these pictures. The individual dwellings in the first picture are officers' quarters, where they lived with their families. The second picture shows the parade ground and flagpole, and across the field are enlisted men's barracks.

The fort was needed after the Civil War to house troops to safeguard the Western frontier against marauding bands of Apache and Comanche Indians. The fort was located at this particular site because it was on the San Antonio-El Paso road, and troops from the fort could help protect coaches and wagon trains traveling along the road. Also at this location there was plenty of wood, water, and grass to accommodate the personnel and the horses.

The notable fact about the Ninth Cavalry was that it was one of two all-black units established after the end of the Civil War. There were also four black infantry units created by the same legislation, and some of those troops were later garrisoned at this fort. The Indians called the black troops Buffalo Soldiers, because the men's hair reminded the Indians of the dark, curly hair of the buffalo. The Indians considered these troops to be brave and worthy adversaries.

As I walked the grounds of the fort, looking into buildings that are furnished to look like the 1870s and 1880s, I could hear bugle calls that were played over a speaker system. I had been given a piece of paper that told the schedule of all the different bugle calls and what each one meant. It was almost like the spirits of the men were still there and busy with their day-to-day drills on the parade ground and chores around the fort.

Here in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, about seventeen miles (27.4 kilometers) from Fort Davis, is McDonald Observatory, one of the major astronomical research facilities in the world. During the day tours are given so that the public can see two of the huge telescopes. Of course, at night all the telescopes are kept very busy by visiting astronomers from around the world who have scheduled time on the telescopes to carry out their research.

The telescope in the first picture is being worked on by a technician who is inside it, setting it up according to instructions given by the astronomer who will be using the telescope that night. The scope is tipped sideways while it is being adjusted, and that enabled me to take a picture looking right into it. The white circular space in the middle of the picture is the 107-inch diameter mirror at the back of the telescope. The mirror collects the light from the stars or galaxies that the astronomer is studying and reflects it into a series of other mirrors and videocameras so that the astronomer can record the information. The astronomer can then use a computer to learn more about the object or galaxy that he or she is studying. The 107-inch mirror is many inches thick and was specially made in Germany in 1969 for this facility. The telescope is named the Harlan J. Smith telescope, and it remained the largest telescope at McDonald Observatory until 1997, when the Hobby-Eberly Telescope was finished and put into use.

The second picture shows that new telescope--one of the new generation of telescopes. The mirror on this telescope is actually a mosaic of 91 mirrors that all together measure 432 inches (11 meters) across. Each individual mirror has its own motor to bring it into proper alignment several times during an observing run, if necessary. Those motors are guided by a laser-alignment system. The whole mirror base sits on inflatable air bearings which can rotate it 360 degrees on top of an ultrasmooth concrete base.

As part of the tour I was on, our group got to see live images of the sun. A special telescope was aimed at the sun, and the image was transferred to a television screen where we could safely look at it. There was a solar flare going on right then as we were watching. The astronomer who was our tour guide estimated that the flare was extending away from the sun the same distance as from the Earth to the Moon. That is one mighty explosion!

That night I drove back up to the observatory to take part in a Star Party. The same astronomer who had been the tour guide during the day took a group of us outside after dark to take us on a "tour" of the constellations. It was very cold up on that mountain in February, but it was worth it to stand out there for awhile. The night sky was so very clear. I saw more stars than I've ever seen before. While we were looking up at the various stars and constellations, cars would drive by now and then on their way up to the telescopes. I knew that in those cars were the visiting astronomers who were just starting their work-day. After the tour of the constellations, we were invited to look through five smaller telescopes that were aimed at Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and two galaxies far away. I saw big Jupiter and four of its moons. I saw the rings around Saturn. But the most amazing thing I saw that night was a galaxy that was so far away from Earth that the light from it had been traveling here for two million years to get to my eyes.

The mountain peak just a little to the right of center in this picture is Guadalupe Peak, highest point in Texas at 8,749 feet (2,667 meters). The peak on the left is El Capitan, and its height is 8,085 feet (2,464 meters). They are part of the Guadalupe Mountains which extend from north-western Texas up into New Mexico. Geologists have determined that these mountains are part of an ancient marine fossil reef which formed about 250 million years ago. Fossils of shells can be found in the limestone of these mountains today.

Mescalero Apaches lived in these mountains before pioneers came. They did not welcome the settlers who intruded on their land. The mountains served as a hiding place for the Apaches when the U.S. Army attacked them. The Army's campaign against the Mescalero Apaches lasted for thirty years, until in 1880 the last of the Apaches had been driven out of the Guadalupes.

During this conflict the Butterfield Stage began carrying mail through the Guadalupes on the nation's first transcontinental mail route. The ruins of the Pinery stagecoach station are preserved in this national park as a reminder of that era.

Today scientists study the ancient reef, hikers enjoy the many trails, animals and birds make their homes in these mountains, and this place of beauty is preserved for all to share and enjoy.

I read in the park newspaper that these mountains may give their name to a segment of the worldwide Geological Time Scale. A special committee will make the final decision this winter, but if it goes the way it's expected to go, the Guadalupian Series will be the name given to a geologic period between Pennsylvanian and Permian, within the Mesozoic era. The vote will acknowledge that a layer of rocks in Guadalupe Mountains is the best example of any rocks in the world of that same age.